A Virginia federal district court judge’s ruling today that the individual mandate portion of the Obama health care law is unconstitutional is a “huge victory” for Texas, Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a phone interview.
Morgan Smith
Morgan Smith was a reporter at the Tribune from 2009 to 2018, covering politics, public education and inequality.
In 2013, she received a National Education Writers Association award for “Death of a District,” a series on school closures. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Wellesley College, she moved to Austin in 2008 to enter law school at the University of Texas.
A San Antonio native, her work has also appeared in Slate, where she spent a year as an editorial intern in Washington D.C.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: New SG Also New to Texas Bar [Updated]
The state’s new chief appellate lawyer is as new to the Texas bar as he is to the job.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: Ho (Steps) Down
James Ho said today that he’s leaving the post he’s held as Texas solicitor general since 2008.
Posted in
Public Education
TribBlog: New Efficiency Rankings for Public Ed
Even as Texas schools face budget cuts, their spending per student is on the rise, according to a new report from Comptroller Susan Combs that rates district expenditures against student achievement.
Posted in
Economy
School’s Out
The budget shortfall — estimated to be as much as $28 billion — will require the Legislature to take a paring knife and possibly a machete to government agencies and programs. The largest single consumer of state dollars is public education, so it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which funding for teacher salaries, curricular materials and the like isn’t on the chopping block, especially if lawmakers want to make good on their promises of no new taxes. But where is that money going to come from?
Posted in
Public Education
Saved by the Bell
Public schools have long had a strained relationship with their charter cousins, which battle them for students and money and boast loudly about their relative success. But in the Rio Grande Valley, a federal grant has the largest public school district partnering with Teach For America and a network of charter schools to create a teacher training center with hopes of luring quality educators to one of Texas’ most poverty stricken regions — and keeping them there. In the process, the competitive tension is being replaced by a spirit of constructive collaboration.
Posted in
Public Education
The Techbook Wars
Penny-pinchers at the State Board of Education opted to incorporate changes to the high school science curriculum via lower-cost electronic supplements to existing textbooks instead of spending up to $500 million to have new ones printed. Trouble is, many schools lack the technological capability to use them.
Posted inState Government
TribBlog: KSP v. TDP: It’s On
The King Street Patriots, a Houston-based Tea Party group, have filed a counter-lawsuit against the Texas Democratic Party. And they’ve retained some high-powered counsel: James Bopp Jr., of Citizens United fame.
Posted in
State Government
The Dentist Departs
This week marks the final meeting of the State Board of Education before former chair Don McLeroy’s GOP primary opponent, Thomas Ratliff, takes his seat. But the unapologetic creationist and skeptic of the church-state wall says you haven’t seen the last of him yet. “Oh, gosh, no,” he says. “I’m thinking that maybe God’s got something else for me to do.”
Posted inState Government
The Midday Brief: Nov. 15, 2010
Your afternoon reading: KBH in 2012, protests at the Bush library groundbreaking, textbook censorship in Plano, and Arizona’s Hispanic exodus.
